Contrary
by sing-oldsongs
Summary: Sherlock listens to the grandfather clock downstairs, counting to midnight in its deep, booming voice. Then he slips quietly out of bed. He is about to do several bad things.


**A/N**: This scene was originally part of a longer and more complicated work, but it was the only part that I actually liked, and I thought it stood well enough on its own to post like this. But if it feels a little incomplete, that's probably why.

I wrote this ages ago, before Series 3 aired, and so my vision of the Holmes family was obviously not influenced by what we see in TEH and HLV.

**x**

Sherlock listens to the grandfather clock downstairs, counting to midnight in its deep, booming voice. Then he slips quietly out of bed. He is about to do several bad things.

The first bad thing is leaving his room in the middle of the night. He's supposed to be asleep. It's long past a little boy's bedtime, Mummy would say if she caught him, but he isn't that little anymore and also, his brain won't stop running about. The second bad thing is not wearing his slippers. He likes the way the wood floors feel beneath his feet, even though Mummy says that he'll catch cold if he doesn't at least wear socks. He's not afraid of colds, though.

The third bad thing is opening the door to Mycroft's room even though it is locked. Open doors mean come in. Closed doors mean knock first. Locked doors mean that whoever is on the other side of the door wants to be left alone. Except that last summer Mycroft taught him how to pick locks, so now locked doors don't mean what they used to mean anymore. They mean _most people_ stay out, but Sherlocks can still come in.

His heart beats fast and hard and painful as he manoeuvres the lock open, listening carefully while he works for any hint of footsteps, for any noises of unusual stirring. He hears nothing. He pushes the door open carefully, listening with held breath to the long, low, screeching whine it makes as it swings in. It _never_ sounds so loud during the day, and he's absolutely certain now someone will hear it. The sound seems to go on and on. But when it finally stops, he's still alone in the doorway, no Mummy coming after him and shooing him back to his own room. Sherlock stands on the threshold and looks in cautiously. His lungs hurt from taking too many shallow breaths.

The room on the other side of the door is all indecipherable blackness. Mycroft doesn't have a nightlight. This is very brave of him, Sherlock thinks, especially because Mycroft was the one who told him about the monsters under the bed. (He took back the story later, but Sherlock knows he only said the monsters weren't real because Mummy told him to, and Mummy doesn't know anywhere near as much about monsters as Mycroft does.) The darkness doesn't scare him, not really, but it does make him uneasy. He hesitates in the doorway.

Then he notices movement in the corner where Mycroft's bed is, a great shifting under the covers. A body rolling over, then settling again on its other side. Sherlock steps forward uncertainly. The body—Mycroft—moves again, flailing its limbs and fighting with the blankets, which rise up and then fall, gathering in the vague outline of a monster. It isn't a monster, of course. It's just some blankets, and the blue and grey quilt from Grandmère. Something about the shape still makes Sherlock anxious.

He steps forward again and, on a second thought, reaches back to close the door behind him. He pushes at it with his fingertips, just enough force to send it not quite into place. This allows a long thin rectangle of light to seep in, still, from the hall. He whispers his brother's name, and when he gets no answer, he repeats the word a little louder.

For an answer, he gets a vague jumble of consonant sounds from the direction of the bed.

"Mycroft?" he asks again, in his everyday voice now, "are you all right?"

"No," the brother-shape on the bed answers. "Go away."

"Why should I go away?" Sherlock asks. The monster shape shifts again, growing taller, its shadow looming across the wall before deflating once more. A loud groaning sound comes from it. Father once told Sherlock that he asked more questions than any other kid Father had ever known. But as far as Sherlock can tell that's only because most kids aren't very smart. If you don't ask questions, how will you ever learn new things?

Sherlock likes learning new things more than almost anything else. Right now he wants to learn why he should have to leave when his brother needs him.

"Because I do not want you here," Mycroft the blanket monster answers.

Sherlock takes a step forward, and then another. He's testing a theory. Mycroft doesn't say anything, and the blankets don't move. So Sherlock steps up next to the bed and says, "You're lying."

"You shouldn't be here," Mycroft answers, the slightest reluctant emphasis on the second word, which is not at all the same thing as _I do not want you here_ and makes Sherlock feel like he's won a small victory.

"Why not?" he says. "Because it's late? I've been up late before." This is true. He doesn't like going to sleep (never did, Mummy likes to say, when she's in the mood to tell stories: _the most restless baby I've ever seen_, she says) and he doesn't like dreams either, where weird and unexpected things are always happening to him. He'd much rather wander the dark, quiet house. He likes it best at night anyway, when everyone else is asleep and he has it to himself.

"Yes," Mycroft admits, as he finally throws the covers off of his head and lets Sherlock see his face. His hair is all mussed and he does not look happy. "But you should be in bed. Mummy wouldn't—in your _own_ bed, Sherlock." He adds this last sternly as Sherlock climbs up into Mycroft's bed next to him, shoving him toward the wall as he does so there's room.

"Mummy doesn't have to know I'm awake. You won't tell her, you never do."

Mycroft has moved to the far edge of the bed, slumped against the wall next to the window, his eyes closed and his face (Sherlock can just make out in the poor light of the room) pale. He's been acting strangely all evening. He's been quiet, and distant, even distracted, and he didn't notice any of the thirty-eight new words that Sherlock has learned this month, which he spent all evening carefully slipping into conversation in just the right places. And he isn't arguing now, like he usually does. The fight's gone completely out of him already.

Sherlock puts his hand on Mycroft's arm and pretends he doesn't notice the way his brother flinches. "You're not happy," he says. "Why?"

Mycroft's tongue flicks out and licks over his lips, first the top and then the bottom. This isn't a usual gesture of his. His lips are dry, then. Chapped.

"I am _sick_, Sherlock," he whispers. His voice makes Sherlock think of gravel and rust. Sometimes sad people sound this way, but Mycroft isn't sad. He isn't crying or sniffling or holding his head like he has a headache. His eyes are sunken. Sherlock peers closely at him and watches his eyeballs twitch behind his closed eyelids. Eyelids are so strange looking. They are so thin, and yet they protect the eye, which is Sherlock's favourite body part right now. Earlier, he asked Mycroft to read to him from an anatomy book he found in the library, and explain all the big words to him, but Mycroft hadn't seemed very interested, perhaps because—

"You're sick?"

"Yes," Mycroft answers. "And probably contagious, which is why you should leave. Right now Sherlock, go back to bed."

Sherlock wraps his arms around Mycroft's stomach instead, his soft belly, and pushes his head up against Mycroft's arm until he lifts it, and settles it over Sherlock's shoulders. He doesn't say anything. But he hugs Mycroft tight. He feels the way his chest rises and falls when he sighs.

"Why do you always have to be so contrary?"

"Contrary," Sherlock repeats. "Opposed in nature or character. Also perverse. Stubbornly opposed or wilful." He doesn't know what all the words mean but he recites them carefully, precisely, pronouncing them all just like his dictionary told him he should. He's been called _wilful_ before, but never _perverse_. Usually, the person talking sounds angry. Mycroft doesn't sound angry. He sounds a bit sad, though, so Sherlock squeezes him tighter.

Mycroft makes a small and slightly pained noise in response, but he doesn't take his arm away, or tell Sherlock he should leave. Mycroft is much bigger than Sherlock and if he really didn't want him here, he would pick him up and carry him back to his own room, but he doesn't do that either, so Sherlock pulls the blankets up over them and settles in.


End file.
